


Helper

by yeaka



Category: Red Riding Hood (2011)
Genre: F/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-12-01 19:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20870183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: Peter does Valerie’s hair.





	Helper

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Red Riding Hood or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

Sooner or later, he’ll send a letter to his family. Valerie can deliver it for him, because it’d only be trouble for them if anyone saw him in the village, and even she will have to take care that no one sees her drop it. But he wants them to know he’s that he’s alive and well: _okay_, at least in some sense of the word. He’s on his third attempt, two other pieces of crumpled parchment paper thrown over by the waste bin. Sitting in the old armchair by the fire, Peter tries again to find the words. 

Over on the bed, Valerie hums a few simple notes, quiet but enough—she’s always distracting him. It’s his own fault. She consumes most of his thoughts no matter what she’s doing. Right now, they’ve only just finished breakfast, and she’s trying to braid her hair. 

He looks over at her and watches the golden strands tumble down her shoulder as she finger-combs them out again, dividing sections up how she must want them. She doesn’t have a mirror, but he imagines it’d be difficult to use one anyway—she seems to like her ribbons at the very back. After several calm minutes of her starting and stopping different braids, He asks, “Is that difficult?”

She glances over at him, humming, “Hm?”

“Braiding your own hair.” In the village, he’d more often sees girls doing that to one another, or mothers fussing over their daughters. He can’t remember ever seeing his own mother doing her own hair. 

Then again, Valerie has a good number of skills that Peter’s mother doesn’t. She shrugs her shoulders and muses, “It’s a tad more troublesome, yes, but what are my other options?”

“You could leave your hair down,” he suggests, accompanying it with a feral grin that surfaces all on its own. “That’d make it easier to run my fingers through it...” She snorts, even though she must know how much he enjoys that. Of course, he loves most things about her body and most ways of touching it. With an amused smile, she waves him over.

“Come here. _You’re_ my other option.”

For anyone else, Peter would scoff and go about his business. For Valerie, Peter rises from his chair, setting his empty letter down on the hearth for future use. He comes where she tells him, and when she pats the bed behind her, he takes his seat. She commands, “You braid it for me.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Liar.”

He does know how to braid, but fabrics and reeds, not hair. He knows that explanation won’t satisfy her, so he resolves to try. She reaches back, running her delicate fingers down through the thick curtain of yellow waves, and she picks out for him two slender sections. Peter wraps the first loosely around his wrist to keep it separated, then begins on the second. 

He knows from the beginning that he’s no good at it. It comes out far too messy, thin strands poking out everywhere. After a few tangled knots, she tells him, “Tighter,” and he pulls just a little harder than necessary, just enough to hear her gasp. Then he tries to focus. The different levels of tension have left the braid uneven, but he goes on anyway. She’d never show her face in town with hair like this, but she won’t have to; they spend most of their lives only with each other, and he thinks she’s beautiful no matter how she’s done up or undone. 

Halfway down, he pinches his progress and shifts over to the other side. It’s difficult to hold one braid closed while starting another, but he imagines that’ll come with practice. This is a morning routine he could grow used to, if for nothing else, then to enjoy the peace and proximity to her. When both braids are a relatively even length, he reaches around her trim figure and plucks the red ribbon from her lap. He ties a sloppy bow and tugs it taut. Satisfied with his handiwork, he seals it with a kiss against the back of her pretty head. 

Valerie turns to glance over her shoulder. There’s a proud smile on her pink lips, and she murmurs, “Good boy.”

Peter grins and goes in for his reward.


End file.
